This is it! The final confrontation between Spider-Man and the Iron Cross Army. Professor Monster’s horrifying (really!) plan is revealed and it’s up to crusading arachnid to save the world from the clutches of the Iron Cross Army. What do the writers have in store for this explosive finale?!

The final tale begin en media res as Spider-Man works tirelessly around the clock taking down the secret bases that his foes have built around the country. Interpol is in charge of hunting down the rest around the world, but the burden of taking down the headquarters lies solely on Takuya Yamashiro, who has barely in inkling on where to start. Even finding these bases are a mystery, as somebody keeps informing our hero of where they are found.

The battles soon takes its toll on Takuya, as every night he crawls home with multiple wounds all over his aching body. Shinko and Takuji are puzzled at these latest incidents, but their brother tells to not worry as he’ll be find in the morning. You’d wonder if this is his healing powers pushed to the brink. A bullet wound is easy, but being caught in explosions on a daily basis?

Spider-Man Episode 40- “Farewell to the Mystery of the Zero”第40話 さらばゼロ戦の謎
Originall Aired March 7, 1979

With only one episode left, Spider-Man will have to work pretty hard to thwart the evil schemes of the Iron Cross Army for good, but beforehand, he’ll have to stop them from obtaining the once-lost plans for an improved version of the Zero fighter plane engine. Can Spider-Man protect the hard work of a grandfather and his grandson from his enemy’s clutches? Find out in this action-packed episode!

Watching a surveillance video of a toy plane, Professor Monster is impressed at its maneuverability. He compares the footage to another one from World War Two, and admires how the Zero fighter plane is a marvelous piece of engineering due to its lightweight and flexibility. Monster wants to find a prototype Zero engine that went missing at the end of the war, so he can install it into a Machine Bem shaped like a manta ray. Amazoness is sent out to retrieve the plans.

Elsewhere, the toy plane continues its fantastic flight and in a matter of minutes the demonstration is over. Hitomi compliments Masaki for his skilled control of the plane and how well it’s built. She hopes to use the photos for a piece, but the boy’s grandfather refuses to be included in it. Masaki tells Hitomi that during the War, his grandfather designed planes for the military. Intrigued, the girl follows the two to their workshop and learns something has happened with a friend of his. Mr. Obara rushes out of the house, and Takuya is forced to go help him.

With only three episodes left in the series, what does Professor Monster have planned to conquer the world in one fell swoop? Actually nothing we know of, as it’s a Game of Death with the maniacal cyborg mastermind gathering the world’s best martial artists to compete against each other. Will our web-stringing hero Enter the Spider or let his friends in the police force get brutally massacred by the Iron Cross’s evil creations?

Accompanied by a very desperado tune, everyone’s favorite narcotics detective with a cowboy complex walks back to his jeep to find his son hiding in the back under a blanket. Tachibana reprimands his son for following him on such a dangerous assignment, but the boy still refuses to stay at home because of his thirst for adventure and excitement.

Elsewhere, Takuya is doing one of his daily training runs and spies a big honkin’ arachnid who falls off his net. Takuya picks his ally up and places it back on the web, but it seems the spider had an ulterior motive. By contacting the young man, it points him to the direction he needs to go…

At an abandoned factory, two detectives follow and attempt to arrest Killer Nelson, a notorious drug dealer with international connections. As they apprehend the ski-masked criminal, he puts up a fight and easily dispatches them both. Amazoness, back in her first costume but still with that wavy wig and tiara, is impressed by this show and has a wrestler cyborg start fighting Nelson. A turn of the thumb indicates death and so Nelson gets his back cracked and dies.

One of the detectives gets back up and foolishly tries to arrest the wrestler, but is surrounded by a bunch of Ninders. Surprisingly, he puts up a damn good fight, flipping the duck=billed grunts to and fro, knocking the other about like an action star. He’s played by Tetsuya Nakayashiki, a rather well-known actor for his many roles as a stuntsperson and actor from the first Kamen Rider and beyond. Shimamoto picks up a pipe and uses like a master swordsman, finishing off the rest. He attempts to fight the wrestler, but the cyborg’s armor is impervious to his assault. Before anything gets too bad for him, Tachibana arrives.

In what seems like a perfect to air an episode that shows the more romantic side of the show perennial couple, Takuya and Hitomi, we are stuck watching the exploits of another freakin’ boys’ detective club. Why are they so persistent on this show? Because clearly, having Spider-Man help kids is a great idea according to the crockpot producers back then, and having kids help him is also good. I dunno.

When a capsule containing a very dangerous biological weapon put up for sale is found missing, it’s a mad race between the Iron Cross Army and Tokyo’s friendly web-swinger to retrieve it. Caught in the middle is a young girl and the head of the local detective club. Can our hero save the day or meet his end at the jaws of a very gullible Machine Bem?

Late at night, Amazoness and a slob of a professor negotiate the price of the botulism bacteria, a very powerful biological weapon capable of wiping out everyone in the size of Rhode Island in the matter of six hours. Half a day later, the area is deemed safe enough for occupancy. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way, but don’t you forget, botulism is still dangerous. Anyway, he wants half-a-billion yen for a capsule and starts bragging about how effective it is, “the best!” he says. Amazoness leaves, grumbling about how Professor Ashida is one penurious bastard.

Alone in his study, Ashida walks over to a statue of an elephant and picks up a capsule containing the weapon. He laughs about how this is a make or break moment for him, as he foolishly believes he has the Iron Cross Army, or any militant group or arms dealer for that matter, in the palm of his hand. Unbeknownst to him, his niece was listening in on the conversation. Later on, she takes the capsule, hiding it to prevent the Iron Cross from obtaining it.

The next day, a boy calls for the Sunset Detective Club for a meeting in the middle of a junk yard. The rest of them, three boys, two girls, don’t want to, especially since they’re going to be in fifth grade and they all have to go to cram school. The boys get into an argument and start to fight, and are pulled apart by Takuya, who was in the area. The ex-members tell Takuya that Sanpei is still obsessed with the idea of a detective club and he should let the kid be, as he’s also gotta grow up and not be slacker like a certain somebody. Not far from here, the girl is promised by Sanpei that they will get help sooner or later.

Back at the Ashida household, Saeko Yoshida has decided to torture the location out of the professor to save the Iron Cross Army the money. The Amazon Duo shoot poisoned tip arrows at him, and Amazoness demands the real location of the botulism capsule. She searches the inside of the elephant statue, and finds nothing but cotton. Ashida passes out.

Outside, the girl and her aunt get ambushed by Ninders and taken to the study to witness the death of the professor. Unluckily for Amazoness, before she can do the killing strike, the man who can hear a pin drop from a distance of a hundred meters (it’s true Amazoness, you were right!) arrives to save the day. He easily dispatches the grunts, and has to go outside to avoid the gunfire from Rita. Just as he steps on a ledge, a pair of jaws clamp on his leg, causing him tremendous pain, but not enough to rip it off.

The Cake is indeed a lie.

Amazoness boasts that Toothache Alligator will never let go due to his very powerful grip. Spider-Man wonders why this one is called “Toothache” instead of “Death Jaw,” and guesses the monster must be attracted to sweets. He tricks the alligator into thinking that there’s cake, and with a simple Spider-Kick, breaks all of its teeth. The Iron Cross retreat for now.

Inside, Spider-Man figures out that Professor Ashida’s area expertise was specialized bacterium, and that the Iron Cross was after a special strain of botulism. The professor’s wife is in denial despite the evidence and that her husband was a conniving jerk who would sell out the lives of many for a quick buck. The little girl Megumi bursts in to defend Professor Ashida as well, as the couple was kind enough to take her in when her parents died. The doorbell rings, and its Sanpei.

At the Iron Cross base, Amazoness reports that Ashida won’t awaken for a month, while Profesor Monster fashions some gold jaws for the Machine Bem.

Takuya follows the kids as they discuss new developments regarding Spider-Man in the case. If you’re in the Valentine Day’s mindset, it’s a romantic scene between the budding kids, yadda yadda. Hitomi and his siblings find the slacker behind a bush and tell him that they’re going to hunt for Missy, Nessie’s counterpart in the local Green Lake. Throwing an improvised fishing rod made of Bamboo into the lake, combined with his Spider-Sense, Takuya finds Missy in a matter of minutes. Missy turns out to be Toothache Alligator, lounging around in a filthy body of water instead of a pastry shop.

Megumi and Sanpei

Meanwhile Megumi and Sanpei run for their lives from the Iron Cross thugs, garbed as servicemen. Spider-Man arrives in the nick of time, but the bad guys search every inch of the area, looking for the capsule. Megumi convinces the boy to go around the neighborhood getting the rest of the club, but they’re all too busy with homework and tutoring. Before the two can take a breather, the Amazon Warriors come and kidnap the two, forcing them to leave their badges as an SOS.

Spider-Man finds the badges and talks to the club on where to find whatever Sanpei hid. Before they have an idea, Kenta and the rest have to go back to tutoring. Later on, the kids start feeling guilty for abandoning their friends and tell our hero where their former leader left a message. Spider-Man reads it and directs the kids to go find the two, while he retrieves the capsule.

Sanpei and Megumi lead the Iron Cross Army to an abandoned steel yard for the capsule, but it obviously isn’t there because… A man who believes in the friendship of the Youth Detective Club got to it already! The club arrives and rescues the two, while the webhead deals with the Iron Cross Army. Despite being shot in the knee by Bela and getting chomped in the arm by Toothache Alligator, the battle ends without a hitch.

At the end, Spider-Man reunites with the club, and the viewer learns to believe in the bravery of youths once again.

Well, this was a waste of a valentine’s day episode, and Takuya didn’t get any chocolate!

It’s story of diabolic proportions when the real emissary from hell pays a visit to Earth to kill Spider-Man. Can our Iron Cross-smiting hero stop the King of Hell’s reign of terror, while helping a boy’s father regain consciousness?

As I said last year, and if you noticed these past 10-plus odd reviews, this show takes a different tone by featuring children as the protagonists of each episode, all wanting to be helped by Spider-Man. They’ve done this because of the batstuff insane plots and gratuitous violence that is commonly seen in superhero shows earlier in the decade. This episode however, all of a sudden, decides to kick those rules in the face and give some pretty messed up. I mean, the KING OF HELL vs. Spider-Man? Only in a 1970s Japanese TV show can this happen. Will this trend continue? With only a few episodes left, let’s hope so.

Enma is the Asian analogue of Hades, who decides which souls are damned, which get reincarnated, and which gets to go to heaven. He is normally called Yama in other tongues, and is a prominent figure in Buddhist and Hindu culture. If you’ve watched Dragon Ball Z and Yu Yu Hakusho, you could get a basic idea of who he is.

A bespectacled middle aged man plays around with Tarot cards with such intensity, you’d think stuff on his desk would start floating around. His son comes in, and asks what’s the matter. The father tells him something is going to happen, and in a matter of seconds, a thunderstorm happens. The Yamishiro kids run into Takuya’s room, scared like a bunch of twits at this strange phenomenon, especially in the middle of Winter.

The father picks out a card, Death, and realizes that the Enma Devil has come to the Earth all the way from Hell. Masao runs out the house, not to contact the police, but to call Spider-Man. He gets to a high rise building and starts shouting for Tokyo’s webslinger. The boy goes all the way up to the roof, still calling for him. Down on the street, passersby start being worried for him, especially since he’s climbed on to some pretty tricky railing, and even the wire fence! The police rush to the roof, thinking the kid’s suicidal and pull him down. Hitomi arrives on the scene, trying to snap some photos, and is miffed by the boy’s cry for Spidey.

Meanwhile, Takuya calls Interpol for any information regarding the thunderstorm from earlier, but he gets nothing. Damn Juzou, whaddya doin’. Downstairs, the girls chat about Masao and why he needs to talk to the superhero so badly. Takuya decides to go check it out.

At the police station, Masao tells the officers that King Enma has returned from Hell. His father is apparently a professor who studies the occult, not some Satanic knob who decided to flit around with summon spells. Spider-Man meets up with the kid later, and has a hard time believing something so whacked out could happen, especially since all of his enemies usually come from a laboratory.

Right before the two arrive, the Enma Devil terminates Masao’s father. The boy returns shortly later and finds his dad’s body stained with blood, even though he was shot with a needle. Spider-Man arrives, and sees the word Enma written in katakana instead of the Kanji spelling. He starts to feel guilty for not believing the boy and tries to apologize. Masao yells at him for his lack of faith and cries that his father is gone forever…

Enma Devil arrives at the Iron Cross Base, telling Professor Monster of all the Machine Bems destroyed in the past episodes. He tells our big baddie that even from Hell, their cries can be heard. Every time a Bem dies, their energy(?) is extracted from their souls to create a very potent tonic, strong enough to bring the dead back to life. It is because of this potion that King Enma can walk the Earth. He praises Professor Monster for his work on these spiritually powerful cyborgs. For a demonstration, Enma kills one of the Ninders with a poison dart, only to revive him in a matter of seconds by pouring a bit of his gourd down the grunt’s throat. The devil promises the professor that he will reveal the recipe to him later, but first he has some business to take care of, Masao and Spider-Man. The Amazonian duo are dispatched to deal with this instead.

Did he just do that?!

Back at Masao’s house, Spider-Man tries to comfort the kid, but Bella and Rita arrive. Creating a diversion, he taunts the two to chase up up to the roof of an apartment building. The two reach the top, and begin searching for the wall crawler, who is busy sneaking around for an ambush. He tricks the two into shooting a Spider-Dummy, and a particularly vicious fight scene begins. As payback for what happened two episodes ago, ie shooting him in the leg, he goes to town on the two, beating the holy crap out of them, causing both to plummet to their deaths(!) Enma approaches the two and pours his extract on them, reviving the two. The villain promises to use this potion to revive each and every Machine Bem Spider-Man has killed.

Spider-Man goes back to the kid and promises him that he will get that potion to revive his father, one way or another. It’s time to head to the battlefield in Jigokugahara, which is found near a mountain. In Japan, lots of places near geothermal spots are referred to as “Jigoku-something,” obviously due to the heat.

Rushing through the fields, and walking a fair distance, Spider-Man arrives and easily detects the landmines placed in the area, not by the Americans, but by his buddies at the Iron Cross Army. He carefully treads, digging a little dirt out at a time to expose them for the cleanup crews. Ninders suddenly attack from their subterranean bed, swiping at him with their swords. Why they don’t’ use machine guns is beyond me, especially their gungho nature.

Enma Devil makes his appearance, taunting our hero with declarations that this shall be his final resting place. Spider-Man it off and tricks the devil into showing off the gourd carrying the potion. With a Spider-Sting, he yanks it away from Enma. Surprised, Hades begins his assault, but not before the man who fights for a lonely boy poses for the episode. Enma shoots his needles and fires his cannon cane to no avail, as his opponent easily dodges them. Spider-Man tries to escape in the GP-7, but is forced to summon Leopardon instead.

In a matter of seconds, Leopardon annihilates the King of Hell with Sword Vigor. Yes, even a robot is stronger than a god! Maybe Professor Monster now has a new standard of building robots, but that damn Marveller is just too strong!

At Masao’s household, the potion is used on his father and he is revived! Spider-Man looks on with approval, while I try to figure out what the hell just happened.

This was a pretty nice episode, in terms of this series’, but they should’ve done more like this instead of focusing only on piddling schemes.

…wait a minute. Did Enma tell Monster his secret, and doesn’t it mean that the Iron Cross Army has access to Lazarus potions? Probably not, since plot threads like this are dumped as much as Bond girls.

Professor Monster calls for the services of the mysterious shape-shifting Dr. Miracle to put an end to Spider-Man once and for all. A youth detective club stumbles upon to this scheme, and our hero has more things to worry about. Will Takuya decide to be stingy and start collecting onions to save on grocery money?

It’s nighttime at the Iron Cross base, where everybody is awaiting the arrival of a meteor. Professor Monster calls for an “ultra close up” to verify its contents, and it appears to be a harlequin mask flying through the skies. It’s Dr. Miracle, and it’s a woman under the mask!

Elsewhere, a kid is awoken by the commotion of the meteorite, as it flashes a ton of energy through the neighborhood, even passing by the Yamashiro household. After a late night snack, the kid goes and investigates this strange occurrence. A masked figure carrying a large bag strolls through the woods, and it’s clear that Monster was right, it is a female (monster of the week!) What’s pretty strange is that she keeps dropping onions.

Dr. Miracle handidly takes care of the Ninders.

Dr. Miracle is given a warm welcome, bowing to the head honcho in her human form. She is played by Mitchi Love, the female star of the second Super Sentai, JAKQ Dengekitai. Amazoness is weary of this visitor, especially due to her exuberance that she’ll defeat Spider-Man, and that his boss has hired ANOTHER woman to the ranks. She tells the Ninders in the room to start attacking Dr. Miracle as a test, and our new villain easily finishes them off, complete with red leotard. Taking out a vial and drinking it, Dr. Miracle transforms into Miracle Mask as a show and in preparation of her next task.

The next day, Takuya is dragged by her sister and girlfriend to research the meteorite that fell last night. They find the Man Man Detective Club digging the grounds for any fragments. Takuya finds a piece of red rock, and at the lab, he finds out that it has a titanium composition, instead of the nickel typicaly found in regular meteorites.

Later the kids spy a hooded figure sneaking around and entering the boy’s home, leaving a ton of onions. The Club arrives and they chase after this cepa conferrer, right into the manufacturing district. What exactly does this multi-layered vegetable have to do with this week’s Iron Cross Scheme? Anyway, the kids finally find Miracle Mask, but when trying to take a picture, she doesn’t show up in the Polaroid. Miracle transforms into a gorilla and menaces the poor children, until Spider-Man arrives.

Stung by Dr. Miracle in spider wasp form.

Dr. Miracle shouts that she is an alien from the Planet Miracle (I know, totally creativeless names scriptwriters,) and fights our hero. Spider-Man demands to know what is her plan, but all he gets is Miracle turning into a Spider-Wasp and stinging him. The damn insect stings him for a good 45 seconds before letting go, leaving our hero having to retreat.

Takuya spends the rest of the day in bed, with Shinko not knowing what’s the deal with his sudden sickness. Hitomi barges in, telling him that Dr. Miracle’s trying to steal the Queen’s Necklace, just like Lupin!

Later, Spider-Man goes to the museum to investigate the theft and is met by Detective Kameda and his men. It’s only fifteen minutes until the theft, and our hero is left alone to guard the necklace. The kids arrive, and decide to sneak in though the back door to get a better look of the necklace. They bump into Hitomi, distracting the entire police force from the theft. Kameda stands in the necklace room, but it’s Miracle Mask! Turning into a spider-wasp, the villain stings our hero, making him a puppet of her whims.

Outside, the cops and kids are shocked by this turn of events, watching Dr. Miracle bragging of her success in stealing the necklace and capturing Spider-Man. Headlines around the country all jump to the conclusion that the web-slinger has been working with this disguised adversary. Shinko and Takuji wonder the fate of our hero, though strangely they don’t wonder where the hell has Takuya been all day, if they just got the late edition of the paper.

Dr. Miracle chopping onions.

Later on, the Man Man Detective Club continue their search for Dr. Miracle and her hideout. The smell of onions waft through the air, giving them a clue on where to go. They reach a clearing in the forest, but have lost the scent. One of the kids remarks they got lost, until Amazoness and her subordinates drive by in a jeep. The kids hide and follow the vehicle even further into the wild, finding an abandoned Western style house.

Amazoness approaches the wheelchair-bound Spider-Man, but before she can unmask him, Dr. Miracle stops her and says that she will have the pleasure of making him suffer instead. Miracle smugly tells Amazoness that she’ll enjoy taking our villianess’s place in the Iron Cross Army once this job is over. Transforming into her Miracle Mask form, she begins to smack the webhead with his umbrella. He tries to get up, knowing that if he doesn’t, the kids will die, but the poison’s effect is just too powerful. Knowing these dire stakes, Spider-Man searches inside of himself for a way to rid himself of the spider-wasp’s poison, and finally does, allowing the kids to escape.

Miracle Mask and some Ninders head outside for a hasty retreat, and the immortal man stops them in their tracks. The fight scene in this abandoned estate begins, as our hero narrowly escapes the assaults of the grunts and the monster of the week. After a particularly nasty fall, Dr. Miracle calls for Amazoness’s help, but she is rebuked and is forced to run away, through the underpass of a bridge. She is thrown to the ground again, taking another fall until she turns into Big Miracle. The Leopardon annihilates this weakling in mere seconds.

Now what did we learn from this episode? Absolutely nothing except the Iron Cross Army’s Earth division is easily stronger than any of Professor Monster’s minions from any other planet.

It’s probably a skippable episode anyway, considering Spider-Man fought Dr. Miracle for a simple reason and that the onions were practically useless except for their medicinal properties. Next episode should be a doozy, the King of the Underworld!

It looks like Professor Monster is trading up from Amazoness, as he steals two mummified bodies from a museum for his own sick experiments. A boy accidentally stumbles on to this scheme and it’s up to Spider-Man to save him. Can our hero do it, especially with the new recruits of the Iron Cross Army on his tail?

It’s nighttime as a gang of Ninders rappel up into a museum to steal two mummies. These aren’t your typical Egyptian mummies, they are on loan to Towa University’s antiquities research laboratory from the Brazilian Government! The two preserved specimens were found deep in the Amazon, and scientists are surprised at how well they’ve been preserved, especially with their white wrapping. What does the ICA want with them, especially since their value isn’t that much in the black market?

Takuya says hello.

Takuya learns about the theft the next morning, as Takuji and Shinko have their breakfast. He feels their is something odd about the theft and heads to the university to investigate, or at least bother his girlfriend on the job.

At the Iron Cross Army laboratory, Professor Monster does a cursory examination of these Amazonian mummies, much to the chagrin of his second-in-command, Amazoness. He even has the audacity to call them beauties right to her face. (Nice subtlety, Monster.) He reveals that the mummies are actually 10 MILLION YEARS OLD!, an impressive feat, considering homo sapien is only a few hundred thousand. The surgery begins and their awakening from such a long beauty sleep in imminent.

In another day, a boy with pork chop hair like Sam Winchester walks in a field. A trio of kids are close behind, intending to prank the boy. Come on, having hair like that is punishment enough! They scare him while wearing gorilla masks, forcing the boy to run to the nearest police station. This gets the attention of not only the town police, but apparently the prefecture’s, as suited detectives are also in the search. The boy get a stern rebuke, and the three brats who did this make things worse by telling the officer that he’s a coward.

Is that you Dracula?

Later on, Shinichi Terada chases his paper plane and it lands in the grounds of a Western-style house. He peers into a grate and sees two coffins, like one in Dracula. Anybody who’s even seen a Hammer flick would recognize the telltale sign of a vampire. The doors open to reveal two women, one Asian and one White. Either Professor Monster gave those mummies new skin, or those 10 million year old beings are not even close to human. Yikes! This scares the boy, running all the way back to the police station to report what he saw. The officer is tired of the wolf-crying, so the kid turns on his ham radio calling for help. At that moment, Takuya, who is searching for Interpol signals, hears the call and heads for Minami Shinmachi.

Spider-Man arrives in the neighborhood, and is taken by Shinichi to where the coffins are held. Meanwhile, Amazoness admires her boss’s handiwork, as nobody would recognize these two mummies. Our hero arrives, oblivious to the trap his arch-nemesis has laid out for him. He arrives in the basement where the coffins are held, with the two mummies dressed as nuns are finally awakening after their 10 million year sleep. Spidey foolishly thinks they’re two victims of the Iron Cross and leads them out. Upstairs, the Machine Bem Tiger Pump has been dispatched to finished off our hero.

Spider-Man rendezvouses with the boy, and suddenly the nuns disappear, with the sound of two girls laughing maliciously. Arrows are shot at them, and the female warriors of the Amazon, Bella and Rita appear. They chase Spider-Man through the woods, making me wish Kamen Rider Amazon were here to help him. Their assault is quite relentless, leaving no chance for our hero to fully run from their combined arrow and machine gun assault. He eventually gets shot in the leg, and retreats further. If only he could get his flying car now…

Spidey runs into the grassy field, trying to keep it together. It’s further complicated with Tiger Pump and an attachment chasing him. He falls into a ditch, and stays quiet long enough for his wound to heal. He sees Shinichi not to far away, and they reunite. The lad refused to run away, and tells Spider-Man that he’ll create a distraction for him leaving him an opening. Shinichi runs, and our hero is shocked by this act of bravery, and runs after the kid, hoping to stop his recklessness.

The Ninders chase the boy into a quarry, where Amazoness and her new assistants wait, weapons ready. Just as they fire at Shinichi, a man who saw hope in the courage of the boy arrives in the GP-7, firing its machine guns at the enemy. The battle begins, as our spandexed hero has to contend with not only Ninders but the Amazonian Warriors’ weaponry.

At the end of the episode, Shinichi learns the meaning of true bravery, and Spider-Man will have to contend with two deadly new foes.

After a young boy witnesses a murder and takes a picture of it happening, Spider-Man must protect him from the Iron Cross Army. It also doesn’t help that the boy is known in the neighborhood as a liar and hoaxer. Can our hero restore the people’s trust in this aspiring shutterbug?

A bunch of kids are looking at a picture of a UFO, and they believe it’s a fake. Takuya and Hitomi walk by and they are asked to verify the pic. Hitomi decides it’s a fake, as the UFO is a plate instead of an actual flying saucer. The kids decide to beat the photog up for his lies and nearly breaks his camera. The couple decide to follow the kid home anyway.

One of many pictures

Nobuo’s house is rather modest, and it even comes equipped with a dark room. Hitomi tries to cheer the kid up, but he sulks about how his deceased father’s camera was ruined, along with his own reputation. She decides to lend him one of her cameras and with renewed vigor, Nobuo goes out into the down taking pictures of anything interesting.

He wanders into a manufacturing facility full of junk and witnesses some really shocking: a middle-aged man shoots a factory worker in cold blood. Nobuo hides, while Amazoness approaches the body. The president of the company and his companion discuss how that industrial spy was going to reveal their plan.

Nobuo runs, calling for help, but when everybody arrives, the body mysteriously disappears. The boy’s mother rushes to the scene and slaps him for causing such a ruckus, not believing that a businessman could do such a time. The president strikes a rather avuncular attitude on the situation, telling the mother to just let it be. Nobuo reveals he took a picture of the murder, and suddenly the president ‘s manner turns to dread.

Later that day, as Nobuo prepares his photos, an Iron Cross thug throws a molotov cocktail into pot. Takuya and the rest rush into the kitchen to put out the fire, but the Ninder gets away with the film. Spider-Man attempts to look for the grunt, not knowing Amazoness already has it. The Ninder is chased to a point under the expressway, but before Spidey can do anything, a Machine Bem comes out of nowhere and blows up the cyborg with a machine gun.

At the Iron Cross Base, Amazoness explains the situation with the President of Tomita Manufacturing. He has established himself as a rather prominent figure in the community, being a chairman of both the neighborhood committee and the PTA. Due to his greedy nature, he was hired by the Iron Cross Army to help develop a weapon called “Scrap Gas.” Once again, the ICA can’t afford anybody to know their activities. A demonstration of the scrap gas shows that it can liquefy a car in seconds flat.

They worry that Takuya Yamashiro would be a wrench to their plans again, but Professor Monster reveals that the slacker has caught a cold after trying to put out a house fire. Using that typical sneezing when somebody talks about you behind your back trope, we cut to Takuya and everybody else at a meeting regarding Nobuo’s antics. The mother insists she saw a metal hand set the fire, and nobody really believes her, despite the numerous incidents in the past year. The President decides to destroy her credibility by showing other photos that Nobuo supposedly took, showing the Principal and Vice-Principal doing embarrassing things. Fed up with the lies, Nobuo runs out the room in anger. Spider-Man arrives, telling the boy he’ll disprove the lies and find the truth or something.

Tokyo’s web-slinger investigates Tomita Manufacturing, looking for any clues. He scours the place, looking for Iron Cross thugs, but nothing is popping up on the bracelet. The President calls Amazoness about how he’ll need more money due to recent complications., but she tells him to act as normal due to Spider-Man’s appearance on the property. Underground, Amazoness tells her men to cease all activity so that they don’t reveal their location to their most hated foe. Hidden cameras are place everywhere, but Spidey catches on and starts his search for the underground bunker. With each pace, he whacks the ground with a wrench, hearing a hollow sound every time.

Nobuo waits outside the facility for Hitomi, followed closely by Shinko. Hitomi refuses to help the boy, especially since she’s still freaked out by the Iron Cross Army, especially Amazoness. Nobuo goes in anyway.

Scrapman follows Spider-Man as he whacks the ground searching for any clues. Amazoness, growing impatient (four minutes left!), tells the Machine Bem to start the attack. She tells the Ninders to prepare the Scrap Gas. Nobuo snaps a shot of a Ninder trying to emerge from the underground, and the flash causes it to fall to the ground, dropping the canisters. The underground facility is ruined by the gas leaking out, forcing an evacuation.

Outside, Amazoness calls her men to attack the man who believes in what the eyes see. And so the episode’s battle begins. Scrapman carries a scrap gas canister, and attempts to spray our hero, killing many Ninders and the President in the process. The Giant Monster battle begins and ends with little fanfare.

It looks like after what happened, trust is restored to Nobuo and his mother. At least Interpol will take care of the cleanup.

A girl that Hitomi uses for a model for one of her assignments is suddenly under attack by the Iron Cross Army. What is so special about the pendant around her neck? And can Hitomi be a better photographer than Peter Parker?

At a shrine in the outskirts of the city, Hitomi photographs a bob-haired girl at a shrine in hopes that the finished product will land her in a weekly magazine. The pictures also show a rather strange pendant around her neck. It isn’t clear yet what it is, but it appears to be something stuck in amber. Not long after Hitomi leaves with a full roll of film, the girl hears the sound of a crow and throws it at the bird. She then whacks the bird for stealing her tofu offering to the shrine’s god.

Pretty soon, Hitomi’s pictures do get accepted to a widely read magazine and this gets the attention of Amazoness. Professor Monster looks through them and notices the girl’s pendant. He recounts the time he raided Planet Spider, plundering its treasure. Shortly after landing on Earth, Monster’s spaceship holding the treasure explodes, scattering the Spider-Treasure around Japan. For these past 400 years, he has been searching for them as well. Surely some archaeologists may have found some by now? Amazoness is entrusted with the task of bothering the girl until the full cache is found.

Later, the Yamashiro family congratulates Hitomi for going mainstream, especially after Weekly Woman fell through when their editor in chief suddenly disappeared. Hitomi cries with tears of joy at seeing her work on the glossy page, remembering the hard work, sacrifice, and many cameras she broke. Takuya comes in and with his Spider-Sense, feels that something is up with the pendant on the girl. Maybe if he went on location with his girlfriend more often, he would’ve seen it already…

We cut to the girl in her daily routine, smacking children in her way with a very taut switch. Takuya meets her at the shrine, but before anything can happen, the girl senses a Ninder and hits it with a rock. Oddly, the force is so strong that it makes the grunt fall 20 feet to the ground. Spider-Man goes after the rest of the Ninders, but they get away. When he goes back to the girl, she challenges him to a fight. It consists of her throwing sticks and shooting slingshots at the tree-crawler. Spidey runs like hell, trying to avoid her ridiculously strong attacks. The girl laughs with such heartiness at his cowardly escape.

It’s almost time for the shrine offering, so the girl makes two giant rice balls to the Harvest God. Spider-Man comes back, apologizing for his skittishness. We then learn the story about how her dad went into the city for work, but the day she didn’t make an offering, he died in an accident. Her mother, overcome with grief, followed shortly after.

Back at the Iron Cross Castle, Professor Monster explains exactly what is so special about that pendant. It apparently gives Spider-Powers to those who wears it. To aid Amazoness in her task, he summons the Machine Bem Fire Fox. The next morning after having a dream about the shrine’s fox, the Fire Fox attempts to trick the girl into giving up the pendant and the location of the treasure. Spider-Man arrives on time to stop the girl from saying anything, and we are treated to a fight where the monster waves his flamethrower arm all willy-nilly. Surprisingly, none of the trees are set on fire.

After school, as the girl runs back to the shrine, Amazoness has her kidnapped in another attempt to find the treasure. Spider-Man watches close by, while Ninders try to threaten her. She tries to run away, but the Fire Fox sets everything on fire around her. You’d think there by laws against putting child actors into a ring of fire. The girl reveals that her father found it one day digging at a site, but the location of the rest of the treasure (if there was any) died with him.

The Spider-Pendant

Fire Fox decides to turn up the heat, but the man who befriends a wild young girl has somehow escaped from the inferno. Popping up from underground, the girl escapes, leaving our hero to begin the episode’s fight. Leopardon destroy Kitsune.. blah blah.

Professor Monster is disappointed at the results of the mission, as Amazoness never did find the treasure.

The girl gives pendant to Spider-Man, seeing that he would put some use to it. Besides, it’s not right for a young girl like her to keep skulking over parents anyway. The girl cries one last time for her parents, keeping them in her heart as she looks forward to a new day.

I’m back from a undeserved long break. I could’ve finished this series by New Year’s, but I got lazy and caught up in watching too many episodes of the Chew. So what’s new? Oh, the Pope resigned? That’s surprising, since I thought the position was like a Supreme Court Justice. Anyway back to “normal.”

In this episode, Amazoness has set her eyes on sabotaging a new power plant by disguising herself as the Chief Engineer’s wife. Can our web-shooting hero find a way to stop her dastardly plans while protecting the lives of the engineer’s children? Will Takuya ever show up to anything on time?!

With so many side careers, Saeko Yoshida has found time to marry some electrical engineer and become familiar with his family. How does she find the time to juggle being the Iron Cross Army’s #2, being an instructor at an exercise club for middle-aged women, AND be a loving housewife? Mary Tyler Moore, eat your heart out.

Today, she decides to make her husband take her on a tour of his latest project, a revolutionary transformer capable of generating a ton of electricity for the General Tokyo Area at probably less the cost than usual. Amazoness loses all sense of subtlety and starts asking too many questions, badgering the poor sap about the equipment’s weaknesses. Her husband refuses, and she flips out, revealing her red-wigged form, chasing him through the plant. He plummets to his death, taking the secrets with him.

Kyoko

Elsewhere, Hitomi and Shinko are exit their car to wait for Takuya for lunch. They talk about him as usual, how he’s a no-good slacker, always late for something, until a female gang shows up and bothers the girls. Before anything serious happens, a junior to Shinko in her high school days shows up and starts walloping the trio. Kyoko peels them off the car like skin off a chicken, and gives each one a good whack with her purse. Just as she came to help the girls, she leaves. Shinko is disturbed by her classmate’s new personality. Takuya arrives later to find nobody there, apparently they followed Kyoko somewhere.

The scene shifts to a discotheque, where the girls are gyrating like no tomorrow to trashy Hendrix-like music. 1970s, how some of us miss you. Everybody dances in the same fashion, as if the smoke machine is distilling actual “smoke.” Outside, a kid gets kicked out by an usher, as children aren’t allowed in the Soul Train Disco. Takuya conveniently arrives, and helps the kid up.

Everyone’s dancing!

The boy tells Takuya that he’s looking for his big sister, and our hero goes inside to investigate. We learn that Kyoko is a club maven, known as “the Lightning Flash.” Before the usher can get her, two armed thugs pull the girl out, and Takuya’s Spider-Sense activates.

Outside, Spidey distracts the thugs and pulls Kyoko away. The Iron Cross grunts leave in haste. Spider-Man takes out a slightly bigger version of his Spider-Tracer and hands it to Kyoko, telling her to press the button if she’s in trouble. The girl somehow takes it as a sign of affection, which is bizarre since nobody wants Spidey’s crap.

Takuya goes back to the disco to pick up the three girls, and Kenichi waits outside. Kyoko dumps her brother once again, leaving Shinko to take him home. Hitomi takes her boyfriend grocery shopping to make up for missing lunch, and uses up Takuya’s part-time job bonus, all $50 and all.

Kenichi returns home and step-mom Amazoness starts asking the boy about where his father kept his work. The boy blabs everything, revealing where his father put the plans in the study and who holds the key to the safe. After months of living with the Sugimoto family, she never thought of searching the study… Or most likely, her other engagements keep her from doing this task.

At the Iron Cross Army base, Professor Monster remarks how well this plan is going along, Spider-Man be damned. He tells a just-arrived Amazoness, and the monster of the week, to act as usual.

Takuya decides to do some field work to investigate why the Iron Cross Army is after Kyoko. He goes to the power plant and learns that Dr. Sugimoto wanted to bring the transformer’s blueprints home with him for fear of sabotage. It has come at an inopportune time, especially since the crew needs them to fix the transformer. Takuya asks about Sugimoto’s disappearance, but gets the response that his wife told everybody to wait a little longer. He decides to go to household to investigate.

Kenichi and Saeko are at home, doing some rather mundane things. She spies our hero from a window and forces the boy to follow her outside for an errand. Spider-Man can’t believe what he’s seeing, though by now you’d think it’s somewhat logical since this isn’t the first time she played somebody’s wife. Amazoness pulls a knife on the boy, only to be thwarted by a Spider-String and the hunt is afoot.

Machine Bem Electric Worm

Through the backyard and into some park, Spider-Man pursues his arch-nemesis. Out of the ground, the Machine Bem Electric Worm pops out in Kabuki fashion. He looks nothing like an Electric Eel and instead is something like a mass of worms attached to the head of a tokusatsu hero reject (or Elvis, or Jiraiya for that matter.) Amazoness slips away, while Spidey wrestles this week’s foe.

Kyoko goes to a locker and picks up her father’s blueprints to check on them. The Iron Cross thugs approach her, and she runs for her life. Spider-Man decides to hurry up with the fight, and nets up the Elvis looking creature.

Clinging to the plans like her own child, Kyoko struggles to stop the two from them. Unfortunately, they fell out her hands and the Iron Cross manages to get the technical plans. Spider-Man rushes to the power plant and finds everybody working there dead as a doornail. The man who will prevent a major blackout in Tokyo leaps to where the Iron Cross Army is making a ruckus and begins the episode’s battle. Yeah yeah yeah wow! You know what happens, Marveller arrives and blows the damn worm to smithereens.

Kyoko returns the tracer to Spider-Man, and he tells the two to not give up, despite the fact that their father’s dead. They leave, and our hero stands stoically.